To celebrate Rag and Magpie will be restocking some of Emma Brigitte London’s one-of-a-kind handmade dresses for a limited time and for a special price of £80.00. There are only six in the range so you’ll never find anyone else wearing the same dress. The collection includes a Black & White Striped Retro Halter Dress, a Cream Floral PeekaBoo Pencil Dress and a Red Polka-Dot PeekaBoo Dress.

To view all pieces by Emma Brigitte London visit www.ragandmagpie.co.uk/emma-brigitte-london

Update: The show is now viewable for a limited time BBC via IPlayer

Commemorative regal tins were all the rage during the recent Royal Wedding, I was tempted by a turquoise one in M&S myself. But how about vintage commemorative tins for a kitsch storage solution? You can usually find good condition 1981 commemorative tins of the Prince Charles and Lady Diana wedding at car boot fairs. Personally I prefer something a little older, like this 1953 Queen Elizabeth II Coronation OXO Tin.

2. Vintage Food Packaging Tins

Pimp your pantry by replacing modern packaging for your food stocks with vintage versions of the same foods. For example you could pop all your biscuits something like this Vintage Peek Freans’ Tin, do this with all your foods and soon enough stepping into your pantry will be like stepping back in time!

3. First Aid Tins

Sooth cuts and bruises in a snip with the refilled contents of a vintage first aid tin from your kitchen. If you’re lucky you may find one with its original contents like this Vintage Tin Boots First Aid Kit.

4. Vintage Cigarette Tins

Although smoking has become relegated to stinky smoking cubicles all over the country it’s fair to say it was until recent years synonymous with Hollywood glamour.  Although I’m an avid non-smoker taking that fact into consideration means I can appreciate vintage smoking paraphernalia and put it to an good alternative use. I especially like this 1960s Benson & Hedges Cigarette Tin because B&H was the brand my great grandmother smoked and it reminds me of her. Little vintage cigarette tins like this one can be an excellent place for my hairpins and can easily be dropped in an overnight bag for weekends away.

5. Vintage Biscuit Tins

Biscuits tins are not just for biscuits. By definition they are airtight and airtight storage tins like this 1960s-1970s Airtight Floral Baret Ware Storage Tin can be used to store any foods like chocolates, teabags, cheese, pasta and cake. But hang on, it’s not just about food. Airtight tins are also a great place to store perishable bathroom products like soaps and bath bombs.

6. Vintage Tea Caddies

Great for storing your tea and coffee of course, but if you’ve got anything else to store that’s going to fill more than one storage tin why not get a matching collection of tins? The easiest way to do this is to search for tea caddies by the same tea brand. Occasionally tou can pick up a pair together like these unbranded Cherry Print Tea Caddy Storage Tins.

7. Tins For Toys

What better way to keep kids clutter at bay than by stashing small toys and kids accessories in a character tin featuring their favourite cartoon or fictional icon.  Kids TV, toy and story related memorabilia tins like this 1965 Peanuts Biscuit Tin Featuring Chef Snoopy are a great storage solution for Lego, Play Doh, kiddy craft supplies, crayons… the options are endless.

8. Vintage Medicine Tins

Do you, like me, find your emergency plasters at the bottom of your bag covered in handbag fluff? Vintage plasters tins are a great remedy to the wasting plasters which these days come in easily scuffed and squashed cardboard boxes. If you’re lucky you might even find a tin with vintage plasters still inside like this 1970s Elastoplast Airstrip Plasters In Tin. They’re also brilliant for storing earrings, stickers, pins and other teeny tiny objects. xx

9 and 10. More Vintage Medicine Tins

Ok, so doing two together is cheating a little but these last tins in my top ten are all so adorable I had to include them both and they’re all of the same type. Still on the subject of vintage medical supplies I can’t get enough of these old throat sweet and strepsil tins, they are ideal on-the-move storage. I use this sort of thing for storing my sewing pins but they’re also a great place to keep bobby pins, staples, buttons, sweeties and little make-up brushes.  Two such tins available at Rag and Magpie are an  Evans Throat Pastilles Tin and a1970s Honey and Lemon Strepsils Tin.

If you have found some lovely vintage tins you want to share or have ideas for storage that you’d like to add please share by leaving a comment with a picture or a link.

Edward and Jacob help sort some vintage tins

Jacob wonders how much he would cost to post

Edward takes a nap on the job

...and he will sleep literally anywhere

On an entirely different note, I have been especially here and there over the last few weeks updating the website (more about that soon), sorting and cleaning new products so apologies for my irregular posting. I plan to be back more regularly from here on out for a weekly post minimum, every Monday morning. I will be starting this coming Monday when I will be posting about collectable tins.  Until then, I leave you with Edward and Jacob’s very own YouTube channel at youtube.com/jakeandted.

Whilst declining pelts and skin handbags offered to the store I found myself entering into a conversation about the fur debate. As Rag and Magpie has a no fur policy I decline every time. However, I have heard and read many people say ‘it’s OK if it’s vintage fur isn’t it?’. Resisting the urge to go off on a tangent about animal rights here are my summarized thoughts and research…

Fur is generally believed to be one of the earliest materials used to create clothing by indigenous people across the world. In this instance I think it’s justified to hunt, skin and use all parts of the animal yourself so as to not waste any; the whole creature is used for meat, tools from bone, fur for warmth and so on. This is the reasoning behind our selling of items which contain byproducts of the meat industry; leather shoes and belts, sheepskin coats and such. If  you did in fact hunt the furs you own then fair enough, better that the skin is used than discarded. However, this is not how things are done in most of the fur trading world.  The average New Yorker or West Londoner does not hunt down and make her own mink coat. The introduction of the words fur ‘production’ and ‘manufacture” make the wearing and trading of fur very different from Its origins and independent hunting for one’s own use (and in my opinion the practice is inexcusable). Animal protection laws were introduced as far back as 1635 and since the use of fur in fashion has spurred anti-fur campaigns and protests from organisations such as PETA and IFAW since the 1980s. True that furs were worn for warmth and glamour in a less compassionate age when the public were less aware of ecological and animal rights issues, but seriously, haven’t we all grown up now?

‘But it’s vintage, the animal died years ago’

Yes, I’ve heard this a lot. True that the animal or many animals killed to make that coat you love in you local vintage store died many years ago but is simply wearing a fur, even a vintage one, delivering a ‘It’s pretty and it’s old so it doesn’t matter” message to the fashion industry? If so this implies that further use of real skins in fashion is a fruitful venture for the future.

You might consider that wearing an inherited or bought vintage fur coat is better ethically than letting it sit hidden in the back of the wardrobe like a bad secret but environmental broadcaster, author and journalist Lucy Siegle states (Dailymail.co.uk 18 February 2008) “If you wear fur as a fashion item – even if it’s vintage – there is an argument to say that to some extent you are perpetuating a taste for wearing real fur.”  While strutting out in your vintage garb you may inspire others to make a an ill-informed decision to buy new furs. Oh no!

Faux fur in vintage fashion.

So if not fur, what shall I wear to keep warm and look fabulous? you might ask. As someone who is allergic to wool I know how difficult it can be to find attractive and warm vintage outerwear. Why not instead embrace faux furs? Initially introduced in 1929 (although crude at this time), high quality imitation furs have been readily available since the 1950s with the added benefit of being more affordable that their real counterparts.

Arguably slightly less warming faux furs developed using chemically manufactured polymers have many non-ethical advantages over the natural fur. They are lighter in weight, resistant to various environment factors such as heat, smoke and sunlight, are low in absorbency thus quick drying and their maintenance much less fussy. In addition they are not prone to the bugs and insects that real furs might harbour.

Take this 1950s Grey Furleen Faux Fur Stole by Astraka for example (left). Astraka were 1950s producers of a great example of Nylon imitation fur with their own top-of-the-range line of ‘Furleen’ and ‘Minkaleen’ products.  A little vintage hunting effort and you could track down an equally beautiful faux fur coat or stole from times gone by.

That means you can stick to your vintage preferences and gratify your conscience all at once, although there is some debate about whether real or faux fur is less harmful to the environment. But more people wearing good quality faux furs may encourage ethical developments in the manufacture of synthetic alternatives and discourage further the use of real furs.

Granted that as a vegetarian I may be slightly biased but in conclusion my thoughts are; don’t be half-arsed, if you’re anti-fur avoid ALL fur and go faux.

Have your say

Has this article changed your opinion? Do you disagree? Do you agree and have even more to say? I’d love to know you thoughts, please share them by answering our poll or by leaving a comment.

Further reading

• www.furisdead.org.uk
• “Should I choose fake fur over real fur”
• www.dailymail.co.uk
• www.vintageseekers.com – The Fur Debate

Whilst contemplating the lovely vintage labels which sit inside the items I was listing this yesterday I came across this amazing Flickr gallery celebrating the beauty of vintage clothing labels.  Flicker gallery by JoulesVintage found via Coletterie. Vintage clothing labels can be so ornate, so colourful and an admirable clue to the era of the item. I feel inspired and might start my own little album.

The original labels in the panty girdle are very indicative of a specific time period due the use of the NRA (National Recovery Act) Blue Eagle label which was in use in the U.S.A only between 1933 and 1935 (thanks to Vintage Fashion Guild for that tip). Another of the four labels informs that the girdle is made of Lastex ‘The Miracle Yarn’, a revolutionary elastic yarn with a core of elastic rubber wound with rayon, nylon, silk, or cotton threads which could be knitted into a fabric to create firm garments in any shape which lacked rubber and boning. This also meant that underwear could be pulled on rather than hooked, zipped or laced by a maid, thus moving a step toward the later step-in girdles and panty girdles of more modern times and independent dressing.

I also found some 1930s advertisements for the girdle.

Flash is the latest Bien Jolie in corsetry design. Made is ‘Lastex’ and weighs next to nothing…can be scrubbed, scoured or boiled without losing shape or resiliency.  -  says Flash advertisement by Whitehouse, Spokane Daily Chronicle - May 17, 1932.

Let these be the restraining influences in your young life. Just enough control to mold your figure into the right curves. Light but firm two-way stretch lastex that’s washable! – As stated in a Smartwear Advertisment by Emma Lange Inc, The Milwaukee Journal - Sep 15, 1939.

Back in the day this would have cost a mere $3.50, of course in today’s money that would have be equivalent to approximately $60 and back then spending power was lower so this would have been a real treat.

This exquisite 1930s panty girdle is available to buy in our store.

Making Schupfnudeln (also known as Kartoffelnudeln or fingernudeln) is sticky business… Or so I learned today. One of the fun things about dating someone from another country is that their inherited family recipes are entirely different from your own. So living with a Bavarian, instead of grandma’s cookies you get fed oma H’s lebkuchen. Today Bob decided to make Schupfnudeln, yummy golden fingers of riced potato. Essentially Bavarias answer to chips. Best of all, making them is a fun but very messy task.

If you want to give it a try there’s a step by step recipe at www.kitchenproject.com

We just returned from staying with family in Bavaria. Bob and I spent plenty of time drinking gluhwein (mulled wine) in the famous Munchener Christkindl Markt, the Christmas market in Munich town square. There was lots to see including giant iced Lebkuchen, handmade decorations galore, beeswax rocking horses and whilst on a walk from the centre we even found a second hand shop where everything we bought was between 50 cents and two euros. It all looks much better live than on camera so I have selected the photo which best represents the merry fun we had. It’s just the most impacting tree decoration arrangement I ever did see.